• You may have to login or register before you can post and view our exclusive members only forums.
    To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Mo Salah 2025/26 Season

Forums Unread posts
Brizzle said:
I agree that he has lost some of his pace & skill. But if that is obvious to us, why isn't our 'head coach' adapting a system to play to his strengths? I think we're isolating him even more than we did when he was at his peak.
Click to expand...
Because we've been 'adapting to a system to play to his strengths' for years. His strengths are not what they were at all, he's 33, we shouldn't be adapting to him - he should be adapting to the team or getting on his bike. It's partly by catering to him and his weaknesses (lack of helping out the defence) that we are in this mess.

N.B. Did anyone else notice Isak's two defensive clearances (headers) vs. Inter? I know it's a small thing but it all helps the defence. Now go and do it at the other end !
 
Hyena said:
Man management is the difference between finding 5th with a shit, half dead squad, and struggling in 10th after spending half a billion.
Click to expand...

And not winning the league and winning it with the same team. Or perhaps his man management was so spectacular it kind of defied all human psychology and only really paid off after he left. yeah probably that.
 
Frogfish said:
Because we've been 'adapting to a system to play to his strengths' for years. His strengths are not what they were at all, he's 33, we shouldn't be adapting to him - he should be adapting to the team or getting on his bike. It's partly by catering to him and his weaknesses (lack of helping out the defence) that we are in this mess.

N.B. Did anyone else notice Isak's two defensive clearances (headers) vs. Inter? I know it's a small thing but it all helps the defence. Now go and do it at the other end !
Click to expand...

I don't disagree on the first point - but by giving him a 400k a week contract we kinda made that decision. And if we are going to play him, we should be playing in a way that makes him a threat. And if he's a threat, we win more games. Similar for other players - our system doesn't play to the strengths of any of our attackers frankly. Which is why Slot has to go.
 
@Momo the guy who said last season is done etc was Ronnie Moran I think. That's the Alan Hansen story about him chucking the league medals out one by one and basically saying well done, enjoy your holiday, it'll be even harder next year.
 
Tinto said:
We don’t have the best attacking roster in the league though.

Isak, Mo, Gakpo and Ekitike all want to play in the same areas of the pitch. To fit them in together, they need to compromise their game in some way. And this reduces their effectiveness. That’s been the main issue the whole season
Click to expand...

I think we do, and I used the word Roster on purpose as I just mean purely from a number of great players. I don't believe we have the best unit and it certainly doesn't play that way. But who has a better set of 4 - 5 attackers (excluding formation, tactics etc.) than Salah, Isak, Wirtz, Gakpo, Ekitike?
 
Brizzle said:
I think we do, and I used the word Roster on purpose as I just mean purely from a number of great players. I don't believe we have the best unit and it certainly doesn't play that way. But who has a better set of 4 - 5 attackers (excluding formation, tactics etc.) than Salah, Isak, Wirtz, Gakpo, Ekitike?
Click to expand...

Salah really is on his last legs so straight away that 5 is less impressive than it looks. If you replaced him with someone like Semenyo then yeah it's potentially the best but even then it's reliant on Wirtz and Isak having finally found their feet.
 
Brizzle said:
I do agree on the first sentence, but I also think a lot of this is tactics and personnel. One big thing that has buggered our RW is that we've played about 7 players at RB as everyone keeps getting injured.

Add to this a completely uninspiring approach when we have the ball, there is nothing being done to get the best out of a player we know is lethal inside the box. He is being limited and isolated on the wing, or having more and more of his cut-inside-and-shoots from outside the box. He needs to be in a system where he's in the box receiving balls when he's making an outside-in run into the box.

I don't like how he's reacted. But I think a lot of his role is down to the 'head coach' and given he has played everyone else in other positions, I am amazed we haven't see Mo tried on the LW, at CF or even as AM.
Click to expand...
It's tactics and personnel as much as it's his attitude and form. We've come in to this season with him struggling to trap a ball and struggling to get him in the game in a meaningful way. Other players might adapt their game. He still tries to beat someone for pace and failing.

Last year we actively played without a 9 to maximise his time in the box. In fact we always have. The systems changed to cater to the fact he's getting older, and he can't cope with that. He's now expected to be a normal winger and not the half 9 that he was.

I'm sorry, but if his ego is that fragile that he can't cope with aging, then why fucking bother playing him?
 
peterhague said:
Salah really is on his last legs so straight away that 5 is less impressive than it looks. If you replaced him with someone like Semenyo then yeah it's potentially the best but even then it's reliant on Wirtz and Isak having finally found their feet.
Click to expand...

Looking at it now then yes at current performance levels it is poor. But at the start of the season we had the two highest scorers from the PL last season, with the Bundesliga's top assister from last season in there too. Ekitike also outscored both Woltenmade & Sesko who both made big moves over here.

So on paper, that Roster was in my view the best at the start of the season. That was only 3 months ago. But its all fallen to pieces.
 
Brizzle said:
Looking at it now then yes at current performance levels it is poor. But at the start of the season we had the two highest scorers from the PL last season, with the Bundesliga's top assister from last season in there too. Ekitike also outscored both Woltenmade & Sesko who both made big moves over here.

So on paper, that Roster was in my view the best at the start of the season. That was only 3 months ago. But its all fallen to pieces.
Click to expand...

Because it's football not a swim team, and you're counting chickens that haven't hatched.

But if the point is he should be getting more out of them, of course he should. Some of them aren't going to work out and be important in a couple years, because that's what happens always with purchases.

Salah definitely won't be important in a couple years.

Salah retarded the process of what we are doing now, and we managed to get a title out of figuring that out for half a season. The player we asked to do the most to make it work isn't here anymore. But even last year, at our best, we didn't have an elite team attack or good interplay. Figuring that out again is a total waste of time.
 
Brizzle said:
Looking at it now then yes at current performance levels it is poor. But at the start of the season we had the two highest scorers from the PL last season, with the Bundesliga's top assister from last season in there too. Ekitike also outscored both Woltenmade & Sesko who both made big moves over here.

So on paper, that Roster was in my view the best at the start of the season. That was only 3 months ago. But its all fallen to pieces.
Click to expand...

But Salah imo isn't the player he was or even good now, so that's one down. imo, anyway.

Then Wirtz just hasn't settled in the league yet, which happens. And Isak has had a nightmare in terms of prep, and by the time he was getting close to being ready, the team was in poor form and general turmoil.

It's completely inappropriate to just treat it as "we had it all and now it's fallen apart!". It's obviously a waaaaay more nuanced picture than that, and at the bottom of it it MIGHT be mostly or wholly attributable to the manager, or it MIGHT be wholly attributable elsewhere. Just stating the bare facts in that contextless way is useless.
 
Gotta be honest, That whole interview made me uncomforable. I assume he was due to come out after that game give the interview because TNT presenter was msking out like Slot was just hanging about while Virgil was being interviewed. But currently Mo had his bed and needs to at least lie there.
Brizzle said:
Not quite. He would always start wide, but if you were to look at his goal map they come inside the box. I imagine if you looked at his shot map this season, they are outside of the box. It only needs to be a 3-4 yard difference and there is an extra line of players in the way.

Doing some research on the fly. Mo's goals last season:

GxQWZ8SWoAAZmCp


I can't find a shot map but i'm sure its out there - I would be there is a lot less on that line between penalty spot and RH post and more towards the outside of the box.

Not saying its a huge shift, but its enough to see a big drop off.

If you truly believe he is playing the same as he always has, and that the tactics around him haven't changed - I admire the lack of detail you watch for in a football game.
Click to expand...
It's very obvious how we play this season and latter end of last season has shifted, not sure it was intentional but been obvious. Not sure why there is a disagreement about this basic fact. There's a few players who have struggled with that.
 
i_rushie said:
I thought that Slot/the club handled Mo's comments fairly well, pointing to his omission from the Inter travelling party as his/their response to Mo. A disciplinary issue, nothing more, nothing less.

So I'm amazed that Slot's hit back at Mo publicly with comments to Seedorf after the Inter match: "Does the player think he's made a mistake as well?" suggesting that for Slot, at least, the issue isn't closed and it's become personal for him too.

On the one hand, you have one of our greatest players of the PL era, who's had seven good to great seasons, and won it all for the club, and was punished for a moment of indiscipline. On the other, a manager who's so full of hubris he's comfortable continuing to play out this drama in the media. I don't get it. Because he won the title last season? Lest it be forgotten, so did Mo. Because he beat Inter? We've been there before, when we beat Villa and Madrid earlier. Some winning streak that was.

Let's be clear, Mo was wrong and he hasn't been playing well and was probably deservedly dropped - but Slot has gotten lucky because in the midst of the outrage at Mo's narcissism, it seems to have been forgotten that Mo's decline can be traced to Slot's system which has arguably failed to draw the best out of a majority of the players in the squad this season. For him to make these comments after Inter, in
Click to expand...
Dreambeliever said:
But that's just a silly point. Were any of them hands down the best player in the league and arguably the world last season in terms of impact?

You make it sound like Salah is 39.
Click to expand...

i_rushie said:
I thought that Slot/the club handled Mo's comments fairly well, pointing to his omission from the Inter travelling party as his/their response to Mo. A disciplinary issue, nothing more, nothing less.

So I'm amazed that Slot's hit back at Mo publicly with comments to Seedorf after the Inter match: "Does the player think he's made a mistake as well?" suggesting that for Slot, at least, the issue isn't closed and it's become personal for him too.

On the one hand, you have one of our greatest players of the PL era, who's had seven good to great seasons, and won it all for the club, and was punished for a moment of indiscipline. On the other, a manager who's so full of hubris he's comfortable continuing to play out this drama in the media. I don't get it. Because he won the title last season? Lest it be forgotten, so did Mo. Because he beat Inter? We've been there before, when we beat Villa and Madrid earlier. Some winning streak that was.

Let's be clear, Mo was wrong and he hasn't been playing well and was probably deservedly dropped - but Slot has gotten lucky because in the midst of the outrage at Mo's narcissism, it seems to have been forgotten that Mo's decline can be traced to Slot's system which has arguably failed to draw the best out of a majority of the players in the squad this season. For him to make these comments after Inter, in my opinion, is just classless.
Click to expand...
It wasn't a moment of indiscipline though. Rather, it was planned and he knew precisely what he was doing. When badgered by Seedorf about everyone making mistakes and needing to be forgiven, Slot very reasonably questioned whether Salah regards his action as a mistake?
 
Interesting pattern in the media: praise him and he’s Mo Salah; criticise him and he’s Mohammed Salah. Feels a bit deliberate

BBC are great at this..

Happend to Andy Murray. British when he won. Scottish when he lost.
 
Not saying every German tabloid is fact like, but would explain why it seems like Salah doesn't like passing to Wirtz:

"The fact that Wirtz is now leading the attack, heralding a future in which Salah no longer plays a role, has enraged the Egyptian," Sport Bild explains , citing Salah's outburst. The attacker is receiving little support in the dressing room.

"Salah didn't care about his teammates," the story continues. "He's the enemy of his own dressing room."
 
SummerOnions said:
Not saying every German tabloid is fact like, but would explain why it seems like Salah doesn't like passing to Wirtz:

"The fact that Wirtz is now leading the attack, heralding a future in which Salah no longer plays a role, has enraged the Egyptian," Sport Bild explains , citing Salah's outburst. The attacker is receiving little support in the dressing room.

"Salah didn't care about his teammates," the story continues. "He's the enemy of his own dressing room."
Click to expand...
If this is even remotely true, it makes Salah look like a right petulant cunt
 
Dreambeliever said:
Considering what the senior players have come and said when they didn’t need to it’s clear he is liked in the dressing room.
Click to expand...

You've heard from a select few like Robbo and Ali who've known Mo from day 1.......what about the rest? What about the new lads that see Salah plays for himself and acts like a cunt when he's not under the limelight 24/7? What about the bee in Salah's bonnet that Wirtz was signed for big money and is now on bigger money than when Mo first arrived?
 
Not sure about the factions...

But what is this "attack" they are talking about though? If Wirtz is supposed to lead the attack and have everyone on his side I haven't quite seen the end product. He has been on the bench plenty as well.
 
Christ, I think the squad will be much more suspicious of Isak who sulked, went on strike, then barely turned up on the pitch this season, all whilst barely saying a word to his teammates.

Similarly, I don't think Wirtz is so deluded as to look at his own poor form and think it's all Mos fault. I said at the start that Isak, Ekitike, Wirtz all like drifting left, which might leave Mo isolated, especially with all the changes at RB.

Mo was wrong, but he's not the cause of all our problems. 5 in 19 isn't the worst return for a wider player.
 
KopRed said:
I'm not from the UK but is this show actually popular? I can't stand the endless banters, together with the shouting, the screaming and the hysterical laughters. The 4 hosts ain't exactly likeable in my books as well...
Click to expand...
They turn it up for American viewers. It's all an act.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

rurikbird
    • Like
  • Locked
Player expectations this season
Replies
4
Views
1K
rurikbird
rurikbird
the count
    • Like
  • Locked
Flabby Melt
Replies
6
Views
2K
the count
the count
Treboeth
    • Like
  • Locked
Klopp Loves Bobby and Mo Too.
Replies
5
Views
2K
kingjulian
kingjulian
the count
    • Like
  • Locked
In memory of @gkMacca
Replies
21
Views
3K
Roopy
Roopy
the count
    • Like
  • Locked
Pep Talk
Replies
1
Views
1K
the count
the count
Back
Top Bottom